Brief History of Education in Northern Nigeria

Brief History of Education in Northern Nigeria

The Anglican Church was pioneered in and around Lokoja by Bishop Samuel Ajayi Crowther, himself a freed slave. His energies were concentrated on setting up congregations of Church Missionary Society (CMS) faithfuls in and around the Lokoja area, along the Niger and Benue Rivers , between 1850 and 1891.

A second focal point of the Anglican Church in the north was at Bida amongst the Nupe people and a mission was established in 1901, followed later by St John's School in 1904.
Christian missionaries from CMS first came further into the north of Nigeria in the late 1800's but were unable to establish a base. Dr Walter Miller and his party set out from Lagos in January 1900. After setbacks, retreats and ill-health he was able to secure a piece of land in Zaria in 1901 and subsequently to move into Zaria in 1905. A three-in-one institution of church, school and hospital, all named after St Bartholomew, was established in Zaria City.

CMS was forced out of Zaria city in 1927, but was given a square mile of virgin land three kilometers from the city wall and a good 10 km from its previous central site. There on the site at Wusasa, the mission was able to build, including erecting a primary and middle school in 1929. Subsequently, St Paul 's Secondary School was established in 1953, and this became one of the leading secondary schools in the north. Today, St Bartholomew's School and St Francis of Assisi Theological College are still functioning on the old Wusasa site, and many a notable Anglican family in Kaduna has Wusasa connections.

A third focus of the Anglican church in the north was the railway development. Churches grew along the western and eastern railway lines as workers from southern Nigeria brought their patterns of worship along with them. Thus, the western railway line reached Kano in 1912. The eastern line saw a CMS team being sent to Jos in 1926, and Anglican Churches spread into the hinterlands from the 1930's into the 1950's.
Since then, several Anglican parishes within Kaduna Diocese as well as many other orthodox as well as Pentecostal (new generation) denominations among others have established schools at all levels, including universities within the northern region of Nigeria.

Of note are the Bingham University, a very bold initiative in northern Christian universities, established by the E.C.W.A (Evangelical Churches Winning All) Church at Auta-Balefi in Nassarawa State, Nigeria as well as the Mkar University established by the N.K.S.T (Church of Christ in Sudan) in Benue State. The Roman Catholic Church also runs the Catholic University of Nigeria (Veritas) with a campus in the heart of Nigeria’s capital in Abuja. A fourth church owned university is presently undergoing construction at Goshen City, a short distance from the Bingham University and founded by the Living faith Church. Worthy of note is the fact that the first university in the north, the Ahmadu Bello University after her foundation went on to have a christian, Professor Ishaya Audu, a young anglican medical doctor as her first indigenous Vice Chancellor.

 

‘Let your light so shine before men that they may see your good works and glorify your father which is in Heaven’.
Matthew 5:1